Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached more than 140 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--many featured on TED.com--and prepared speakers to testify before the U.S. Congress, appear on national television, and deliver industry keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Maybe you've started to get used to an audience full of tweeters, soliciting audience questions on Twitter in advance of your talk, and using that platform to promote your presentation and share follow-up information after it's over. But there's much more Twitter can do to enhance your public speaking--and your audience's experience. Here are three unexpected options speakers can take advantage of:

Audio samples from your speech, or audio messages before or after you speak:These 6 services offer you several free options for sharing audio in a tweet, including voicemail direct to one user as well as audio any tweeter can hear. Using audio to enhance your Twitter communications before and after a speech is a natural advantage for speakers. Make sure you're recording yourself, and tweet a couple of great audio clips after the fact, or record some thoughts before or after to share with your followers.

Speakers' market research on Lanyrd: Sign in with Twitter, and you can see which conferences your Twitter followers are interested in, on this site that serves as a social network for speakers, conferences and conferees. Then use that information and fill out your speaker and attendee profile, so you can more easily connect with people you already follow and make sure they know about your next gig.

Taglines and novel ways to summarize your speech: The TED blog noticed this first when online organizer Eli Pariser's TED talk was tweeted, yielding several creative taglines and summaries in Twitter's short-form limits. You can read the full list at the link, then start looking at tweets about your talk. Which ones make the best taglines or descriptors? Use them, with credit for the creative tweeter, to give your speech longer legs.

How do you use Twitter to enhance your public speaking? Leave word in the comments.

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